Distinguished Keynote Speaker

Professor Dr. Mohammad S. Obaidat

IEEE Fellow and SCS Fellow

President, Society for Modeling and Simulation International, SCS

www.scs.org

Editor-in-Chief, International Journal of Communication Systems, Wiley

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/5996

E-mail: obaidat@monmouth.edu

http://www.monmouth.edu/mobaidat

Mohammad S. Obaidat is an internationally well known academic, researcher, and scientist. He received his Ph.D. and M. S. degrees in Computer Engineering with a minor in Computer Science from The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA. Dr. Obaidat is currently a full Professor of Computer Science at Monmouth University, NJ, USA. Among his previous positions are Chair of the Department of Computer Science and Director of the Graduate Program at Monmouth University and a faculty member at the City University of New York. He has received extensive research funding. He has authored or co-authored six books and over four hundred and twenty (420) refereed scholarly journal and conference articles.  Dr. Obaidat has served as a consultant for several corporations and organizations worldwide and is editor of many scholarly journals including being the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Communication Systems published by John Wiley. He is also an Editor of IEEE Wireless Communications.  In 2002, he was the scientific advisor for the World Bank/UN Workshop on Fostering Digital Inclusion. Recently, Dr. Obaidat was awarded the distinguished Nokia Research Fellowship and the Distinguished Fulbright Award.  

Dr. Obaidat has made pioneering and lasting contributions to the multi-facet fields of computer science and engineering. He has guest edited numerous special issues of scholarly journals such as IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, IEEE Wireless Communications, IEEE Systems Journal, Elsevier Performance Evaluation, SIMULATION: Transactions of SCS, Elsevier Computer Communications Journal, Journal of C & EE, and Wiley, Security and Communication Network Journal, and Wiley International Journal of Communication Systems, among others. Obaidat has served as the steering committee chair, advisory Committee Chair, honorary chair, and program chair of many international conferences. He is the founder of the International Symposium on Performance Evaluation of Computer and Telecommunication Systems, SPECTS and has served as the General Chair of SPECTS since its inception. Obaidat has received a recognition certificate from IEEE. Between 1994-1997, Obaidat has served as distinguished speaker/visitor of IEEE Computer Society. Since 1995 he has been serving as an ACM distinguished Lecturer. He is also and SCS Distinguished Lecturer. Prof. Obaidat is the founder of the SCS Distinguished Lecturer Program (DLP) and its present director.
Between 1996 and 1999, Dr. Obaidat served as an IEEE/ACM program evaluator of the Computing Sciences Accreditation Board/Commission, CSAB/CSAC. Between 1995 and 2002, he has served as a member of the board of directors of the Society for Computer Simulation International. Between 2002 and 2004, He has served as Vice President of Conferences of the Society for Modeling and Simulation International SCS. Between 2004-2006, he has served as Vice President of Membership of SCS. Between 2006-2009, he served as the Senior Vice President of SCS. He is currently the President of SCS. He has been invited to lecture and give keynote speeches worldwide.  One of his recent co-authored papers has received the best paper award in the IEEE AICCSA 2009 international conference. Dr. Obaidat received very recently the Society for Modeling and Simulation Intentional (SCS) prestigious McLeod Founder's Award  in recognition of his outstanding technical and professional contributions to modeling and simulation. His research interests are: wireless communications and networks, modeling and simulation, performance evaluation of computer systems, and telecommunications systems, security of computer and network systems, high performance computing/computers, applied neural networks and pattern recognition, security of e-based systems, and speech processing. During the 2004/2005 academic, he was on sabbatical leave as the Fulbright distinguished Professor and Advisor to the President of Philadelphia University (Dr. Adnan Badran who became in April 2005 the Prime Minster of Jordan). Prof. Obaidat is a Fellow of the Society for Modeling and Simulation International SCS, and a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

On the Recent Trends in Wireless Networks

The field of wireless network systems has witnessed tremendous growth in recent years causing it to become one of the fastest growing segments of the telecommunications technology. As wireless networks evolve with increasing size and profitability, they will be able to integrate with other wireless technologies enabling them to support mobile computing applications and perform as efficient as wired networks. Due to the difficulties posed by the wireless transmission medium and the increasing demand for better and cheaper services, the area of wireless networks is also an extremely rich field for research and development.

The fast growth of wireless systems in recent years, together with the exponential growth of the Internet is increasing the demand for wireless data services. Traffic on upcoming wireless systems is expected to be a mix of real-time traffic such as multimedia teleconferencing, real-time voice, and data-traffic such as WWW browsing and file transfers, with users desiring diverse Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees for different types of traffic. Guaranteeing the QoS for these traffic types is considered a challenge and on-going research activity.

This keynote will address the current trends in research and development in wireless networks and communications. Also, it will shed some light on the future and challenges facing the progress in this fascinating technology. We will review the fundamental techniques in the design, operation, and evaluation of wireless networks and systems. We will present some of our recent research results including new protocols for wireless networks. Among these, an adaptive MAC protocol for distributed wireless LANs that is capable of operating efficiently under bursty traffic conditions. According to the proposed protocol, the mobile station that is granted permission to transmit is selected by means of a neural-based algorithm.  Another new protocol for dynamically setting 802.11 wireless LAN waveforms and transmission power levels based on the wireless channel’s signal to noise ratio will be introduced. Our method, known as Signal-to-Noise Ratio-Waveform Power Adaptation (SNR-WPA), changes the power in discrete steps matched to each of the 802.11 data rate-waveform steps. By matching the power to the spreading symbol rate, our technique maximizes the network throughput while minimizing MAC layer contention. We present a new scheme to authenticate and authorize 802.11 wireless nodes within a network. This new layer of security relies on a neural network decision engine that restricts network access to mobile nodes whose physical location is within a threshold distance from the wireless access point or the controller of the network. This method gives an extra layer of security and allows enforcing policies by which network access is only allowed from a certain section of the network.
We will also introduce a new security scheme that attempts to fix a flaw in the disassociation mechanism of the WPA protocol. Other related wireless research efforts by our group will be presented.

Joel J. P. C. Rodrigues
IEEE Senior Member, IARIA Fellow
Institute of Telecommunications, Portugal
University of Beira Interior,
Rua Marquês D’Ávila e Bolama,
6201-001 Covilhã, Portugal

Joel J. P. C. Rodrigues is a Professor at the Department of Informatics of the University of Beira Interior, Covilhã, Portugal, and researcher at the Institute of Telecommunications (IT), Portugal. He received a PhD degree in Informatics Engineering and MSc degree from the University of Beira Interior, Portugal, and a 5-year B.S. degree (licentiate) in Informatics Engineering from University of Coimbra, Portugal.
His main research interests include sensor networks, body sensor networks, vehicular delay tolerant networks, e-health, high-speed networks, e-Learning technologies, information and knowledge management, mobile and ubiquitous computing, and supervising several PhD and Master of Science candidates in these areas. He has authored or co-authored over 100 papers in refereed international journals and conferences, book chapters, a book and a patent.
He is the leader of NetGNA Research Group from IT (http://netgna.it.ubi.pt) and the founder and leader of the IEEE ComSoc CSIM Special Interest Group on Modeling and Simulation Tools (http://mst.it.ubi.pt). He is the Secretary of the IEEE ComSoc Technical Committee on Communications Software and the Secretary of the IEEE ComSoc Technical Committee on eHealth. He is member of many IARIA Workgroups and ComSoc Technical Committees related with his research areas and regularly participates on their meetings.
Joel is the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of E-Health and Medical Communications (from IGI Global), and he has served as a guest editor for a number of journals including the Journal of Communications and the Journal of Communications Software and Systems.
He is Chair of eHealth Track from Selected Areas on Communcations Symposium at IEEE ICC 2011, Co-chair of the Communications Software, Services and Multimedia Applications Symposium (CSSMA) at IEEE Globecom 2010, Organizer and General Chair of the IEEE ICC 2009 and the IEEE ICC 2010 Workshop on Medical Applications Networking (http://man.it.ubi.pt/), Organizer and General Chair of The First International Workshop on Networking and Games – N&G 2010 (http://ng.it.ubi.pt/), TPC chair of the 15th IEEE International Workshop on Computer-Aided Modeling Analysis and Design of Communication Links and Networks - CAMAD 2010 (http://camad.it.ubi.pt/), Chair of the Symposium on Ad-Hoc and Sensor Networks of the SoftCOM Conference, Workshop Program Chair of the 2009 International Workshop on Wireless Multimedia Computing and Security Services (WIMUCS 2009), Workshop Program Chair of the 2009 International Workshop on Network Assurance and Security Services in Ubiquitous Environments (NASSUE-2009), TPC Chair of IARIA International Conference on Communication Theory, Reliability, and Quality of Service (CTRQ 2008, CTRQ 2009), and chaired other conferences committees in the recent past years.
He is and was member of several editorial review boards (IEEE Communications Magazine, Journal of Communications Software and Systems, International Journal of Communications Systems, International Journal of Business Data Communications and Networking, Journal of Network Protocols and Algorithms, International Journal of Communication Networks &  Information Security, IARIA International Journal On Advances in Life Sciences, IARIA International Journal On Advances in Internet Technology, IARIA International Journal On Advances in Telecommunications, etc.) and many international program committees (IEEE ICC, IEEE Globecom, IEEE WCNC, IEEE CCNC, IEEE ISCC, IEEE ICCCN, IEEE CAMAD, etc.). He chaired many technical sessions and gave tutorials at major international conferences.
He is a licensed Professional Engineer and he is member of the ACM SIGCOMM, a member of the Internet Society, member of the Society for Modeling and Simulation International and a Senior Member IEEE Computer Society, IEEE Communications Society and IEEE Education Society, and an IARIA Fellow.